Saturday, August 2, 2014

Gumberoo

QuasarDragon Games first OSR adventure, PO-1: The Stolen Child, should be available within a couple of weeks or so, barring unforeseen disaster. It will be available at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, most likely as a pay what you want item. In the meantime, here's a rather silly monster for any OSR game systems.

Bear, Gumberoo

Frequency: Very rare

No. Encountered: 1

Size: Medium

Move: 120 ft

Armor Class: 7

Hit Dice: 3+3

Attacks: 3

Damage: 1d3/1d3/1d6

Special Attacks: Hugs: 2d3

Special Defenses: See below

Magic Resistance: Standard

Lair Probability: 80%

Treasure: None

Intelligence: Animal

Alignment: Neutral

Level/XP: 4/215+3/hp.

Source: North American Folklore.

"What a strange creature it was. When I first saw it, I thought it my be a deformed bear, or one that was horribly scarred. That was soon disproved when poor Arteoss decided to chase it off with his slingshot; it seems unlikely that he'll ever regain use of that eye. Who'd have believed that the stone would bounce of the damned beast and rebound straight back at Arteoss." - from The Journals of Eurylochos the Traveler.

Gumberoos are a strange species
of bear that inhabits coastal forests. They look much like an obese, mostly hairless
black bear, with bushy eyebrows and scraggly chin hairs. Aggressive beasts,
gumberoos will attack almost anything when it is away from its lair, not from
maliciousness but because it has an exceptional appetite.

Gumberoos are immune to all
non-magical weapons which bounce off its hide and invariably rebound toward the
attacker. This innate magical ability causes the attacker, such as a player
character, to effectively attack themselves. (Whatever number the player rolled
to attack the gumberoo is used on the attack against themselves.Strength and other bonuses do apply.)For each attack, magical weapons have a 25%
chance of rebounding, as do magic
missiles (roll for each missile). Because of this ability, gumberoos have
no fear and will charge anything that looks edible.

This creature has one fatal
weakness, though it is often dangerous to exploit. If a gumberoo is damaged by
fire for more than one point, it explodes in a flaming inferno, exactly as if a
fireball cast at eighth level had detonated where it was standing.

Gumberoos spend most of their
time sleeping at the base of burned out trees, typically cedar trees.The rest of the time they are out hunting or
following other biological urges. They are voracious eaters and can eat prey larger than themselves, sometimes stretching to to ridiculous proportions to consume it all.

Original art by Coert DuBois

All monster statistics are Open Game Content,
including, but not limited to, the stat block from “frequency” through
“source.” All references to spells, and other preexisting open game
content referred to in the text is Open Game Content.